Dead of Night
by Fallen Ark Angel
Summary: In the early hours of the mornings, Bickslow and Lisanna consider how lucky they are, out of the billions of tiny universes above their heads, that they somehow wound up in the same one, at the same time. - One-shot.


Since he was a boy, Bickslow always found it difficult. Sleeping. He had an immense amount of freedom presented to him at an early age, following the death of his parents, and that lead to a lot of terrible choices being made along the way.

For a long time, out on the street, he kind of couldn't sleep well. Anywhere. Because someone was always after you. After making it to Fairy Tail though and finding his way there, he found that the night just suited him by that point. He would sit up in his room at the dormitory all night, reading comics and learning spells when he was young, lamenting life while chain smoking when he grew. As a man now, the bad habit had eaten away at him and, though he could tumble out of his bed for practice or jobs, if the Thunder Legion was on any sort of break in Magnolia, he'd only go back to his apartment and sleep all day so he could stay up all night, watching movies on his lacrima while discussing with his babies the myriad of topics that crossed his mind.

The night life was just his most productive hours, was all. Daylight made him squint his eyes, having to hide them behind his visor, and things were much softer at night, he found, other than just the light. People whispered and music was hushed and it was just much calmer, outside. You could hear the animals out in the forest better and even when he was all alone, in his apartment, he found himself trying to be silent about it. Hushed. His lacrima would stay down low, hardly more than a candle or two lit, and the babies knew to keep their nonsensical rambles to a minimum.

Papa had a lot to think about. They usually left him to it.

Still, the hours weren't too great for a social life. It was bad enough, being gone all the time, off on jobs, but then when he was home, yeah, he was around to go out to dinner or hangout late into the night, but as he grew, he found that less and less people were only about that. Staying up all night partying and carrying on. People liked to meet for lunch. Women liked to be taken out. During the day. Or at least not to only have an attentive partner during some of the daylight hours. When he was around to be that. Which he rarely was.

But meh.

Bickslow had a hard enough time finding a woman who was interested in him. It was a lot of work to get a woman to look passed the face tattoo and strange dolls that floated about. And when he did find one, he was kind of tired of her already because he'd already been chasing her for a good point at that part and it was boring. Once that was all done with.

And what kind of guy would he be, huh? Being interested long term in a woman who was interested in a fucked up person such as himself? If she was into face tattoos and delinquency, then he probably wasn't into her.

A catch 22.

Maybe.

He wasn't quite sure what that was, but it felt like it applied to his situation well enough.

It was weird though. When it happened. Really weird. Which suited him, because he was really weird, but…

Lisanna was always kind of a misfit too. Sort of. She was more aligned with the inner circle of Fairy Tail than he was, really, as she spent years hanging off Makarov's golden boy, Natsu (while, you know, Bickslow hung off the real golden boy), and she was Mirajane's little sister, which carried a lot of weight too.

But when she arrived back from the dead, it was to an all new guild and all new people and her siblings, even, were different. Life didn't wait for you, while you were gone. It couldn't. Things moved on. They had to. He was sure she didn't blame them. How could she? It was through grace or fate or luck or, maybe, just sheer chance that Lisanna had been saved. Been given a second chance.

She had no right to complain about anything.

So she didn't. As far as he knew. Lisanna seemed just happy to be around, at any given point, and would spend time with anyone. Her brother seemed to be the only one that she'd go out on jobs with though and Mirajane was content, really, to have her just hang around the bar most days. Where she could glance at her. And grin. Because she was there. Lisanna. Alive. With them again.

She wasn't so clingy to Natsu in those days though. No. He was gone a lot, on jobs, and she was always friendly with most everyone in the hall, before her death, so it was only natural that she'd fall so simply back into that roll following her supposed revival. Or was it just a return?

It didn't matter. She seemed to not really wanna focus on it, up at the hall. She threw herself into whatever everyone else was into and drifted around the hall some, kind of glad to just take it all in again. As time went on though and days became years, she did find herself hanging around the Thunder God Tribe a lot.

This mainly had to do with Elfman and Ever's hot and cold antics which Lisanna enjoyed greatly because it gave her something to tease her older brother about. Not to mention giggle about with Mirajane. Evergreen usually didn't take well to other women, but she did see the benefits of Lisanna. Whether she and Elfman were off or on, it was great to have the youngest Strauss about to tell her every single thing the man was doing when they were apart.

Because she had to know.

Every single detail.

It was through this that Lisanna and Bickslow became friends. Sort of. She seemed to like Freed the most out of all of them and they would spend time together even when Ever or Elfman weren't around to torment, as Lisanna seemed to take great amusement out of the rune mage and his seriousness. He liked her as well. She listened to his complaints from jobs and seemed to understand the woes of leadership. Or at least was sympathetic to it.

Bickslow would hang about in times like that, occasionally, and it was a different dynamic, the one he and Lisanna formed with one another. She was goofy, underneath it all, and he had the same ailment, though he hid it beneath his dark surface, and they could cut up to the chagrin of Freed at times.

He wouldn't consider her a friend. Not really. Something more than an acquaintance and more, even, than the others in the hall. He liked Lisanna enough, the seith did, and he didn't mind too much one day when she sat down at the table with him, just him. They spoke and he drank and when it was time to close down that night, he mentioned that he wasn't headed home just yet and, since Mirajane still had to stay so late, closing up, he could walk her home. If she wanted.

"So you don't gotta wait for your sister," he explained and she almost rejected him, bringing up the fact that she was a super powerful mage too, you know, and could take care of herself, but…

They were having a pretty good conversation before that and it beat walking about in the cold all alone.

"What are you going to do?" Lisanna asked him eventually as they strolled through the dark, silent streets. "You said that you weren't going back home yet-"

"I'm not."

"Then-"

"Just go walk around the park some. Be a vagrant for a bit. Then go home. Smoke. Watch a movie."

"Long night."

"That's the goal."

She offered to go with him and Bickslow was kind of hesitant because, yeah, he wasn't minding his night up to that point, hanging out with Lisanna, but they were pushing some hours together by that point and they couldn't possibly force any more conversations.

Not to mention, he didn't know what her intentions were, exactly. But she seemed to just not want the night to end yet and they were guild mates. Friends, fine, yeah, whatever.

"I guess you can tag along," he gave him eventually with a bit of a shrug. "If you wanna."

"Only if you wanna, Lisanna," his dolls all insisted and she didn't drink, but was pretyt giggly in the late hour.

"But," the seith added as they changed their path then, her no longer leading and him taking over, "there is a rule."

"A rule, huh? Just to hang out in the park? At night?"

"Yeah."

"Gotta hear it then, I guess."

"Keep talkin'," he explained simply, "to a minimum, huh?"

She giggled at first, thinking this was some kind of joke, but when he just shook his head, she teased slightly, "Afraid of waking the ghosts?"

"Somethin' like that."

She giggled once more though and when they finally got to the park, the moon was high in the cloudless sky and it was kind of mystic out, it felt. Their conversation was dead, but neither he nor Lisanna seemed to feel any heaviness over this. Lisanna kept glancing up at it, the sky, and Bickslow found he kind of liked looking up there too.

"Stars are out," he muttered and she shot him a look before putting a finger to her sealed lips and, well, what could he do but tug at his visor and nod.

When the park got boring, Bickslow naturally headed home and he sort of forgot that he was supposed to take Lisanna back to hers until they were at his and he started to speak, but found the sound dying on his tongue and she was beaming at him because she was having a good time and didn't seem too exhausted either.

"Stay up late often? Kid?" he asked once they were inside because they officially weren't outside and that meant that the no talking ban was lifted. Still, he whispered it and Lisanna had been to his apartment before, once, when he had a party and Ever made him invite her and Elfman, but it was different just the two of them.

Everything felt different just the two of them.

"The best hours," she assured him in a hushed voice back. "You said something about a movie?"

Snickering, he could only nod his head. "If you're up for it."

They watched two, actually, that night, and as the second ended and the sky was turning that strange mix of deep purple and light blue, Lisanna dipped out finally. He offered through yawns to walk her back home, really walk her back home then, but she said she only wanted to get there before Mira took off for the morning shift.

"Hopefully," she sighed as she left, "she didn't notice I never made it in."

He'd found out when he rolled into the hall much later in the day, the evening really, to meet up with Freed and Evergreen, that Mira hadn't noticed. Lisanna told him this as she served him, just starting her shift for the night, and Freed questioned him as the Strauss woman left them, what exactly she was talking about, but the seith could only shrug.

"Maybe I hung out with Lisanna Strauss last night. Ever think of that, Freed?"

"No," his friend said with a shake of his head. "And I don't think I rather like the implications."

"Was a silent night, I'll tell ya that much."

"Please stop talking to me about this."

"Lots of hushed whispers."

"Bickslow-"

"Stars. I saw stars."

"I really wish you would find another person to discuss this with."

Bickslow didn't want to though.

He knew to cool it though, when Ever came about, because she might say something to stupid Elfman and then the joke would either get his ass kicked by the muscular man (an attempt, at least), as well as it getting back to Lisanna, which was the last thing he wanted.

Eventually, he found himself alone again, bothering others around the hall as he drank and waited. He wasn't sure for what. That night, he'd wanted to just go home and hang out in the darkness and decompress a bit. They would be heading out on their grueling jobs soon enough, him and his two best friends, maybe even Laxus, which meant that he should be prepping for that, but…

"I thought," he offered when Lisanna got off, "that I could walk ya home again. If you wanted."

She got off before closing (because Mirajane trusted no one to close up the place other than herself) and seemed eager at his suggestion and wow, it had never been this easy before. To get someone to actually hang out with him. Even Ever and Freed took a bit of convincing.

"I probably wouldn't be able to sleep," she offered as they left the place, "anyways."

"Never can," he agreed easily. "Better to sleep durin' the daylight, anyways. It's too bright for being out long."

"That's one reason, I guess, yeah," she sighed and he didn't press because, really, he didn't care much. Not then. He just wanted to get back to his place so that he could see how close, exactly, they were to having the same feelings about the night.

There would be no movies and no park. No. Only his music lacrima, lighting up, and deep self-reflection. He kind of thought Lisanna would bail on that one because there were no stars or silent comedies. But nope. As they sat about, he muttered some thoughts sometimes that she found funny enough and his babies glowed green, softly, in the darkness, to replace the stars as they were provided with before. She didn't even call his musical tastes crummy or nothin', like most people would. Like he would admit they would.

"It really," he told Freed as the man only groaned and prayed his face wouldn't show his embarrassment, the next time he saw the youngest Strauss sibling, "set the mood. The music. And we talked til the sun came up, after. Magical, really, it felt."

"I wish you had another friend."

He did.

But he couldn't tell her about it because she'd get all pissy. Ever thought she was the only one that could fuck a Strauss. And, well, she was, actually, but his story would imply otherwise and you couldn't have that.

They couldn't hang out again, for a bit, because he took off on his jobs and, when he returned, she was never around in the evening, it seemed. He heard something from Ever about she and her brother going off on a job, at one point, but other times he saw her hanging about with Natsu and Lucy and the like, so he just let her be.

Eventually, of course, the darkness found them both sitting around the hall, almost waiting for one another it seemed, and when he offered to walk her home, it was easy for the woman to accept.

They went to the park again that night, but they didn't walk around for long as, after picking out a spot, he and Lisanna fell onto their backs on the soft grass and they stared full up at the starry sky, silently, for a long time.

"Hey, Bickslow?"

"S'pused to be quiet," he muttered as he didn't even glance at her. "Lisanna."

"What do you think about? When you stare up at the stars?" She hummed some, softly, and said, "I think about how, probably, right now, they're looking up at the same ones. In Edolas. And in all other sorts of planets and worlds and… But I think I'm probably the only one."

She didn't think she'd get an answer back, he could tell, because she turned her gaze from him and back up at the sky. It was only then though the man spoke. His visor was pushed up and his hood was off and he felt the cool wind as it blew over them in ways he typically didn't.

"I remember," he told her softly, "when I was a kid. Lookin' at 'em. And my Papa told me that each one was a different universe all together. And when you're done on this one, you get to go hang out in one of those then. Billions of 'em, I bet. Just waiting. For you to try each one. You don't always get put back with the people you want, each time you go to a new one, and I bet that would suck, but he told me that sometimes, maybe, you do. All those combinations, you almost have to."

"I like that." She was looking at him again, he could feel it, but he wouldn't her. "Like… I'm not looking at the same stars as everyone I left back in Edolas; I'm looking at them. And they're looking at me."

Nodding some, he added, "But I wonder some times. When you do go on. When you do get to a new one. And maybe you do meet someone from one of the other billions you'd been to. Do you know? Or would that ruin it? Or do you just feel a connection to them, yeah? One you can't explain. That you don't understand. Until you're separated again. Just to hope you get it again. Maybe different, maybe not, but somethin' like what it was. Maybe that's why I'm friends with them. Freed and Ever. Why I like Laxus so much. Fairy Tail so much. Because I've been with you all before. We've all been with each other before. Or at least some of us with one or the other. Could you imagine that? I wonder if every tie we cross paths, all of us, do we raise as big a commotion as we do here? ON Earthland?"

She hummed in response before her eyes fell away from his face and onto his chest. His babies littered it, dormant it seemed, for the time being.

"Maybe," she whispered softly, "when you meet someone you knew before, that you connected before to, you don't have to leave them. Again. When it's your time to go. Maybe you get to go. And you wait on them. To join you. Like your dolls. Maybe they're people you knew, before or now, who are waiting on you to join them. And your magic just lets you see it. Let's you realize it. And the rest of us have no clue."

"Maybe," he agreed as he blinked. "Lisanna."

When the sky started to lighten and the stars began to fade, he wasn't shocked to find Lisanna snoozing. He'd heard her doing it for a good hour or two at that point. But he only reached over gently to shake her shoulder with a yawn as he got to his feet.

"Don't want someone catchin' ya, kid," is the best advice he could offer. "Sleepin' in a part. Leaves bad impressions."

Freed was the one with the jokes though, that time, when he and his friend met for dinner at the hall.

"And what things, then, did you and Lisanna get up to?" he questioned. He'd been there, when they left together, and though he squeezed his eyes shut and pretended not to notice, the horrible images that he was certain the seith would paint that evening were ingrained in his mind already, conjured up or not. "Hmm? What vague, graphic thing did the two of you-"

"Lisanna and I are friends," he told Freed simply and there was little play in his voice then. He said it in a rather commanding way too, as if affirming this to the rune mage who, obviously, had assumed them more by that point anyhow. Due, of course, to Bickslow's own boasting. "So maybe just lay off, huh?"

Freed frowned, but knew his friend to always be a bit off, so he didn't push the subject. It wasn't as if he were too keen to get into the nitty-gritty of it anyhow.

"If you wanted to do somethin', tomorrow night," Bickslow found himself asking Lisanna a few days later. Days. Because he met her during the day time, as she didn't seem to be around at night recently. But that day there she was, working bar through bleary eyes and he only rubbed at his own as he made an offer to her. "Then do you think that you could meet me in Hargeon? After sundown?"

He had no way of knowing if she was even planning on staying out late that specific night or whatever, but Lisanna nodded not soon after he spoke and it was set, the location and the time. All he had to do was make sure not to get drug out on a new job between then.

They had dinner together, given they met so early in the evening, in Hargeon and their conversation was light and jovial then, like it usually was, used to be more often, when they only spoke about teasing her brother and Ever, or giggled over Freed's serious nature.

After exploring the city until an unreasonable hour for most, they found themselves drifting towards the docks and Bickslow had already rented them a tiny row boat and it was kind of comical, really, maybe, the two of them paddling off into the night together. If they sprung a leak and both drowned, no one would ever be able to explain what exactly they were doing.

"Are we dating?" she asked after they'd rowed a good bit from the dock and where just sitting there, on the single piece of plywood that stretched between each sides. The bench. Seat. Neither knew enough about boats to know if it had a true name. They faced away from one another, though they were forced to touch one another, at the sides, and he looked out into the more ocean that awaited them forwards while she watched the glimmering city behind them. "Bickslow?"

"Not like any datin' I've ever done," he replied simply and she only shrugged some.

"You'd be the expert," she assured him as she reached with one hand, up, for one of his babies as it floated close enough. She didn't grab the floating doll out of the sky, but rather guided him then, down to her lap, where she only grinned down at him. To the doll's father though, she whispered, "Out of the two of us."

"Do you wanna date me?" It was foggy that night and he watched as it rolled over the waves around them. "Lisanna?"

She considered this in silence for a few before saying, "If this is what it is...dating… Then I wouldn't mind it, no. This is nice. I… I wanna keep doing this."

"Who said we had to stop?"

"No one. I was just-"

"It's good to talk, sometimes, kid," he told her with a bit of a sigh, "but other nights, I think, it's just better when we don't."

And she had to agree.

When he rowed them back to shore, the pair took the train back to Magnolia together as the sun came up, and it was almost blinding by the time they arrived, but she only yawned, heading one way as he did the other.

This went on for some time. This late night game they were playing. There was no pattern to it, no rhyme or reason, but as the season only got colder, they found themselves doing it more often than not inside of his apartment. Which was just as well. Lisanna could just as easily kill the early morning hours there as she could else where.

"Why don't you like to sleep at night?" he whispered one night as they sat there, on his bedroom floor, and his back was up against the bed while she laid before him, nearly there, really. Sleep. But not quite. He could tell as he puffed at his smoke and enjoyed the music. "Kid?"

"Something changed," she admitted to him softly and she didn't even think about it. Didn't hesitate. "When I went there. To Edolas. Not that place on it's own, but whatever happened to me, when I got sucked up, I think… I think maybe I felt it. Just for a minute or two. The darkness. What really comes for you. When you… Sometimes when I close my eyes, if I'm not really exhausted yet, then I won't be able to sleep so fast. You know? And then I have to think about it, as I shut them, and I don't… I hope your dad was right, Bickslow. That we get to go somewhere else. Other places. With or without people we knew before. Just...other worlds. That it keeps going. Infinitely. For all of us. Because if it doesn't...and what I saw, the darkness, is all there is… I just hope, I guess, is all."

"Yeah." And it burned that time, the inhale, but the exhale felt so good. So very good. "I hope too."

"Bickslow..."

"Hmm?"

"Maybe one day," she whispered as she drifted off, "we can go on a real date. Do you think? I don't even know what that means, but-"

"We will," he assured her,. "Lisanna. Promise."

"But still this too, right?"

"Yeah," he agreed and smiled some from the thought. "Can't sleep without it."

He never thought he'd find someone that would enjoy it as much as him. Those early morning hours. On top of that, someone he wasn't bored with. Because it wasn't a chase. He wasn't after Lisanna. It all just kind of...happened. And she wasn't into his face tattoo or too old to be so edgy attitude. She just liked to be around him. To talk about the same things as him. Listen to the same music. Snicker at the same movies. Sit, for hours, under the same billions of other universes that loomed above them.

To think, he was that old before he realized that's what he shouldda been looking for all along.

He kissed Lisanna for the first time when she left his apartment in the early dawn hours that next morning and she only giggled, there in his doorway, while he grinned and his dolls sang softly behind him, nonsensical and ready for bed it seemed, but to the amusement of the two people they were serenading.

Only, when he fell into bed after pulling his curtains closed and tossing a blanket over his head, he just couldn't fall asleep. His body wanted it. It needed it. But it was rejecting it as all he could think about, instead, was Lisanna and what they'd do, if they ever did go out. Really go out. Somewhere where everyone saw and what would Freed say, to learn that it wasn't nearly as whirlwind as he'd made it out to be, before? And that they were headed towards being, finally, much more than friends?

"Rough day?" the rune mage asked when, before the sun even began to set, Bickslow found himself staggering into the guild for a late lunch rather than an early dinner.

But he could only shake his head, Bickslow could, as he knew he'd have to turn in early that night. Especially if he was gonna get up bright and early the next day (well, by noon at the latest) and prepare for whatever and wherever, exactly, he was gonna surprise Lisanna with a date to.

"No," he ywaned to his friend as Freed only stared. "Not at all."


End file.
